Sunday, March 25, 2012

Flowers of the earth

We're having an odd summer here in the Philippines. It has been raining at days when the sun is supposed to be showcasing its boldest grandeur...and ok, I stumbled upon this English proverb:

April showers bring forth May flowers. ^____^

Aha! That doesn't make me so grumpy about the rain and the floods anymore. Yep, May will be here soon. The young children will need an abundance of blooms to offer to the Virgin Mary every evening. Flores de Maria had always been something for me to look forward into for summer breaks from school.

My grandparents from both sides of the family grew flowers and vegetable garden. I remember both the impatience and amazement in watching the buds becoming more beautiful each day. I also remember the disappointment when the flowers are starting to wilt. How I wished the flowers would stay vibrant forever...held by sturdy stems. But they didn't and they won't. I guess that's life. But with every dying flower is a promise of another beauty waiting to be discovered somewhere in the garden :)

So much for my recollection and back to the topic: SUNDAY STAMPS :D I was unable to post stamps for quite a while now. I'm making up for that today. Since it's flowers/spring theme in Viridian's this week, here are the rest of the flower stamps from my collection:


My favorite! Red tulips are associated with eternal true love.



A 2007 flower stamp from Czechoslovakia. 
Cylamen is both a scientific and common name.
It is also called sowbread, persian violet, or primrose.



Issued in 18 March '09 under the Holy Days & Celebrations.
I wish someone can tell me what flower is this exactly...please.
I am taking a wild guess that it belongs to the genus Tagetes.



I need help on these stamps, too. I don't know how to read Japanese characters :(


My grandma's favorite!
 The flower that knows its chemistry --
The petals would be pink, purple, or blue depending on the soil's pH.



I was searching for info about this stamp, and here's what I found:





The deep blue color of the iris is associated with nobility --
its three petals symbolizes valor, wisdom and faith.
In mythology, Iris is the goddess of the rainbow.
In historical context, it's the fleur-de-lis of the French monarchy.



The greater pasque flower is listed under 'Jewels of Nature' 


And here's a flower art in stamp from Croatia. The design was made by
Orsat Frankovic and Ivana Vucic. This was a part of the 
Croatian Ethnographic Heritage - Posavina series.


I hope you enjoyed these flower stamps. Happy Sunday everyone and have a great week ahead!

~maria

p.s. If you want to see some flower stamps from my country, find them here.

9 comments:

  1. THose Iris from Russia are magnificent but youhave agreat collection here. I'd only seen the Belarus stamp before and that on someone else's post.

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  2. A wild guess for the Finland stamp - it may be a chrysanthemum. In France chrysanthemums are flowers of remembrance and are placed on graves on All Saints Day. However, I have to say it looks more like a dahlia than a chrysanthemum to me.

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  3. Love the Russian one, so detailed yet the background is its element. The Japanese seem to issue a lot of flower stamps, so pretty. Nice selection.

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  4. Goodness what a parade of flowers! I feel happy now. Thanks for sharing with us.

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  5. I enjoyed all your pretty flowers. I was surprised about the flower that changes colors, and didn't know that the fleur-de-lis was an iris.

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  6. These are all gorgeous and thank you too for your memories.

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  7. Thank you for these. We have had hydrangea of both blue and pink - depending on where we were living at the time

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  8. Sorry for repeating myself :) Anyway it was nice to visit your twice!

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